Morphology and multigene phylogeny reveal new genus and species of Torulaceae from freshwater habitats in northwestern Yunnan, China

Multigene phylogeny and taxonomy of Dendryphion hydei and Torula hydei spp. nov. from herbaceous litter in northern Thailand

“…The family Torulaceae Corda was introduced by Sturm [1] and is typified by Torula Pers. Species in Torulaceae are known only by their asexual morphs which are characterized as followed: superficial, effuse, greyish brown to black, powdery colonies; micro-or macronematous conidiophores, with or without apical branches; doliiform to ellipsoid or clavate, brown, smooth to verruculose, mono-to polyblastic conidiogenous cells which often remaining cupulate; subcylindrical, phragmosporous, acrogenous, brown, dry, smooth to verrucose conidia characteristically produced in branched chains [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Crous et al [8] investigated phylogenetic relationships of this family with the inclusion of Torula species and accepted Dendryphion Wallr., besides Torula within Torulaceae in Pleosporales.…”

“…Hyde. Su et al [7] examined 21 freshwater taxa and updated phylogenetic relationships of taxa within the family Torulaceae based on ITS, LSU, TEF1-α and RPB2 genes and accommodated Rostriconidium Z.L. Luo, K.D.…”

“…Currently, there are six accepted genera in Torulaceae viz. Dendryphion, Neotorula, Rostriconidium, Rutola, Sporidesmioides and Torula [10,4,9,6,7].…”

“…However, there was little information regarding the phylogenetic relationships of Torula until the studies of Crous et al [8], Li et al [5] and Su et al [6,7]. To date, only 15 species have their DNA sequence data being analysed to reveal their phylogenetic placements in Torulaceae [18,19,9,5,6,7,20].…”

“…was introduced by Wallroth [21] to accommodate hyphomycetous species, D. comosum Wallr. The genus is commonly known to be saprobic on dead stems of herbaceous plants and decaying wood, and is characterized by having erect, solitary, branched in upper part, polytretic conidiophores, forming septate, pigmented, thick-walled, finely roughened stipe and a distinct conidiogenous apparatus, with dark scars and catenate, in simple or branched chains of brown, septate (didymo-or cheiro) conidia [8,7]. Crous et al [3] introduced D. europaeum Crous & R.K. Schumacher based on morphological characteristics and molecular data and later Crous et al [8] accommodated the species in Torulaceae and further accepted Dendryphion in Torulaceae.…”